This week, Old Billy Shakes churns out a clean, concise, and clever all-verse instrument of historic entertainment. Most of the plays I’ve read heretofore have been comparatively dodgy and uneven in both their plots and language. Richard II is a much smoother ride verbally; there’s not a non-nobleman in sight. Nothing against the alehouse regulars, but honestly their banter, though quick-witted, is hard to follow sometimes. All those “to the manner born” speak in that famous iambic pentameter all day long and it’s a breeze.
For my money, King Richard II is my favorite of the “proto-Hamlets” in William’s early works. He’s another unpopular king, but he was clearly born to be a poet instead of a statesman, and his speeches evolve even as his reign devolves. He’s the first character to really go deep with the kind navel-gazing most of us only associate with our favorite Dane. Granted, Richard is onanistic in his reflections (in Act V, Sc. V, he literally mates his brain and his soul to give birth to thoughts) and thinks of no one else. He’s a bit of a Bible-thumping bastard, so confident in his entitlement that he even jokes about the good fortune of Gaunt dying so he can line his coffers with the old man’s moveables and pay for his Irish war. Eventually, he realizes (and beautifully articulates) what all monarchs must come to know deep in their souls: that the crown is a hollow thing, as treacherous as it is tempting. It merely confers title upon its bearer, not necessarily renown.
Shakespeare incorporates a handful of useful motifs and themes into Richard II as well. Some gardeners compare Richard’s kingdom to flower beds, the Queen compares Richard to a rose, and John of Gaunt compares England herself to a whole grocery list of wondrous things. The imagery of Richard as Christ is sprinkled liberally throughout, which buttresses Richard’s devout belief in the divine right of kings. Later, pagan symbols of earthly elements (fire, water, rocks) smash against angelic appeals, shadows, mirrors, faces, heads, and of course, the grand “hollow crown” metaphors are in full swing. Henceforth, every succeeding king will discover this truth of the golden circlet’s taunting indifference and incredibly fickle power. Richard is the first to truly analyze it (Dicky 3 merely contemplated how hard he wanted absolute power), and rue its deceits. And boy, does he do it with style. Some may think his rococo turns of phrase overwrought, but when juxtaposed with the flat, stoic verbiage of someone like, say, Bullingbrook, they give Richard a superb, strong voice and unmistakable character. I just adore it.
We enter with Richard II and his uncle John of Gaunt, who has a quarrel to present: Gaunt’s son, Henry Bullingbrook, has accused Thomas Mowbray of treason, embezzlement, and having something to do with the death of Richard II’s other uncle, the Duke of Gloucester. There’s a lot of shade thrown, and underneath it all, everyone knows deep down that Richard ordered the murder, but the King just stands back and smiles as the fight ensues and a duel is proposed. Then Richard shuts everyone up and acts all holier-than-thou with his pleas for peace and forgiveness but eventually yells “FINE we’ll have your goddamn duel on such-and-such a date” and everyone agrees.
At his home, John of Gaunt is getting a tongue lashing from Gloucester’s window for not revenging that shit. Gaunt says only God can bring justice, and since Richard is God’s chosen king, it’s all on him at this point. The Duchess could just die.
The duel day is an excuse for pomp and excessive formalities, but just as Bullingbrook and Mowbray are about to kick off, Richard throws his warder down (I want to use that as an idiom so bad!) and everyone freezes. Richard orders Bullingbrook to be exiled for ten years and Mowbray is exiled forever, and has them swear they won’t meet up in exile and foment civil war. Mowbray laments and parts, and when Richard sees Gaunt’s sad face, he lops off four years from his son’s sentence, even though Gaunt knows he’ll die before he ever sees his son again anyway.
Richard chills out with his entourage: Bushy, Bagot, & Green (the best law firm ever!) and York’s son Aumerle, who gossips about how popular Bullingbrook is with the commonwealth and Richard gets all Mean Girls about it. Richard huffs and says “Get in, bitch, we’re going to war in Ireland!” but just then, they hear from Bushy that Gaunt is dying and Richard can’t contain his delight, so they head off to bid him farewell and count Gaunt’s cash.
At Gaunt’s house, John rouses up enough breath to speechify one of the best speeches that ever speeched:
Methinks I am a prophet new inspired
And thus expiring do foretell of him:
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son,
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!
*swoon*
Clearly, Gaunt tells his brother York, England is circling the drain under Richard and everything sucks. Richard shows up with his gang and they have it out. Threats are made, allegations fly, and Gaunt leaves to die in the next room. Richard says “Oh well, good riddance, everyone grab what you can so we can pay for my war!” York objects in the nicest way possible, but Richard brushes him off, unworried about Bullingbrook finding out and returning to demand his legal inheritance. Richard deputizes York as Governor of England while he is away. Northumberland tells Ross and Willoughby that Bullingbrook is already planning on returning with an army; they are just waiting in the wings until Richard’s departure. Ross and Willoughby nod and say they’re ready to join the rebellion.
At Windsor castle, the Queen is depressed as all get-out. Bushy tries to cheer her up when Green comes in, asking after the King, but is told Richard left for Ireland already. Green says “Well, Bullingbrook just showed up and England’s biggest nobles and most of the commoners are following his lead.” York says he’s ready for battle, although he admits he has a snowball’s chance in hell defending the throne. York vows to protect the Queen, anyway, and goes off to do his best. Bushy, Bagot, and Green know they are royally screwed, and decide to run off for safety in different directions.
Bullingbrook leads his forces through Gloucestershire, gathering more nobles as he goes. They get to Berkeley and York chastises Bullingbrook for breaking his exile. Bullingbrook says he was exiled as Duke of Herford, and due to his father’s death, he is now Duke of Lancaster, and the Duke of Lancaster was never exiled so THERE! All the other lords complain about Richard and York rolls his eyes and admits that Richard has been kind of a dick to Bullingbrook, but that it’s still rebellion and that’s not cool. York knows he cannot beat them in battle so he says he’s a neutral party and he’s staying out of it.
On the Welsh coast, angry Welsh army men decide they’ve waited too long for Richard to show up, so they leave. Back in Bristol, Bullingbrook divests Bushy and Green of their heads.
Richard strolls onto a Welsh beach, thinking he’s doing fine, but is soon disabused of that notion by Salisbury, who delivers the news about Bullingbrook and the Welsh army. Scroop adds that all of England is against Richard now, and Bushy and Bagot were executed.
Richard then gives another sad but exquisite speech:
No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let's choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?
*double swoon*
Although Richard understands he is soon to be deposed, the Cardinal and Aumerle remind him that he is KING after all and should still have hope. But then Scroop says that York finally decided to join the rebels after all, and Richard schleps himself to Flint Castle.
Bullingbrook comes to Flint Castle, where Richard has holed himself up with no supporters whatsoever. York warns Bullingbrook not to go too far, but Bullingbrook insists that he’s just here for what he is legally entitled to, nothing more. He asks Richard for his lands back unless he wants an army to take it back for him. Richard presents himself at the top of the castle wall like the majestic queen he is and the rebels back down. He agrees to have a discussion with Bullingbrook wherever he wants.
The Queen sulks around York’s garden while her lady in waiting tries to come up with something fun to do. They hide when two gardeners pass by and they listen to their conversation. The gardeners talk about how Richard doesn’t know how to pluck out the overgrown weeds of his own garden and no wonder he’s being deposed as they speak. The Queen jumps out and cries, as the deposition is news to her, and she decides to leave for London immediately.
At Westminster, Bullingbrook and a handful of other lords interrogate Bagot about how the Duke of Gloucester was murdered. Bagot says Aumerle did it and Aumerele denies everything and wants a duel. Three other lords challenge Aumerle’s claim and more arguing ensues until Bullingbrook shuts them up, saying they’ll ask Mowbray, but he is dead now. York comes in to announce that Richard has named Bullingbrook his heir and is stepping down so he can be Henry IV. The Bishop of Carlisle wails and prophecies that England is doomed and Bullingbrook arrests him for treason.
Richard enters and proceeds to spend an inordinate amount of time waxing poetic about abdication. It’s tragic and profoundly insightful. He weeps and asks for a mirror and almost can’t let go of the crown and speaks of water and tears and shadows. It’s pitiful and sublime. Bullingbrook has almost naught to say in return, and what he does say is woefully bland. After all that, the lords still want Richard to read a list of all the bad shit he’s done and he is just like “OMG for real? I just gave up my entire blinged out lifestyle! Give me a break!” He’s sent to the tower. Aumerle, Carlisle, and Westminster secretly start plotting against Henry already.
The Queen meets up with Richard before he gets to the Tower and they make the sappiest, most chaste of goodbyes ever. She reluctantly agrees to go to France and Northumberland informs Richard that he is to be sent to Pomfret now.
The Duke and Duchess of York are chillin in their palace and chat about the parade of loving commoners welcoming Henry IV to London and how they also threw dirt at Richard as he passed. Their son Aumerle interrupts and says he’s been stripped of his title, and he’s clutching a letter to his chest suspiciously. York grabs it from him, reads it, and rants about the treason his dumbass son has agreed to commit with Carilse and Westminster. York rides off to the castle to tell Henry despite his wife’s protests.
In the castle, Henry offhandedly asks how his dumbass son is doing. “Probably whoring around in alehouses as usual, the little shit,” he says. (Oh, Prince Hal, I do love thee, you bad boy, you!) Aumerle barges in and locks the door behind him, intending to beg forgiveness for his intentions. He’s about to confess when York bangs on the door and Henry lets him in so he can accuse his son and insist that it’s ok if he wants to execute Aumerle. Then the Duchess arrives and pleads for mercy. York says “Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?” (i.e. “Cool your tits, woman!”) Henry decides to pardon Aumerle (he’s a cousin after all) but execute the others involved in the plot.
Some rando named Exton tells his servants that he thought he heard Henry say he’d like Richard killed, so he runs off to do the King a favour.
Locked up in his cell, Richard’s solitary poetry reaches its zenith of awesomeness.
I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world:
And for because the world is populous
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out.
My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,
My soul the father; and these two beget
A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
And these same thoughts people this little world,
In humours like the people of this world,
For no thought is contented. The better sort,
As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd
With scruples and do set the word itself
Against the word:
As thus, 'Come, little ones,' and then again,
'It is as hard to come as for a camel
To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'
Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
Unlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails
May tear a passage through the flinty ribs
Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls,
And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.
Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves
That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,
Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars
Who sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,
That many have and others must sit there;
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortunes on the back
Of such as have before endured the like.
Thus play I in one person many people,
And none contented: sometimes am I king;
Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am: then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king;
Then am I king'd again: and by and by
Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing: but whate'er I be,
Nor I nor any man that but man is
With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased
With being nothing.
*triple swoon*
While Richard is busy feeling sorry for himself, a groom loyal to him arrives and reports about how Henry was riding Barbary, Richard’s favorite horse. Richard is saddened but does not blame the horse for being proud to bear a king. Exton and some servants come in and Richard manages to lash out with an axe and kill two of them before Exton takes Richard’s life. Exton only then starts to doubt if this was a bright idea.
Back at Windsor Castle, Henry IV is glad that the rebellions against him have been put to bed and the responsible parties executed. Exton drags Richard’s body into the court in a coffin and Henry does a facepalm. He admits that he wanted Richard dead, but not in this manner. He banishes Exton for his tactless deed and Henry swears he’ll go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land to make up for all this bloodshed in his name.
Juicy shit, amiright?
Richard II is glaringly free from battle scenes and fighting. All disputes are ceremonious and heated at most, and I wonder if this might’ve made the play a bit dry and boring for Shakspeare’s audiences. Personally, I find it refreshingly tame, but no less full of courtly intrigue and murder. The characters are just so much more well-rounded than in most of the earlier plays, that I just don’t care if it’s mostly dudes standing around complaining and whining and posturing. Its lexiphanic nature could easily be played off as a bit comedic if one were so inclined to direct it that way, although that would ultimately take away from the lovely seriousness of Richard’s many fine speeches. He may be an ass, but he’s an honest ass, and honestly lyrical.
Full disclosure: a huge reason why I have a soft spot for Richard II is due to Ben Whishaw’s nonpareil portrayal of him for the BBC’s 2012 Hollow Crown series. I didn’t even have an opinion on Richard until I saw this superb version of the play onscreen. It visually converts much of the biblical imagery mentioned throughout and as a result, proves that the text lends well to a glossy cinematic conversion. I mean, it also has Sir Patrick Stewart as Gaunt for one thing, and Rory Kinnear as Bullingbrook for another, and they are perfect. But holy shit BEN WHISHAW.
I adore him for so many reasons but this was masterful casting and I think he gives pompous-ass Richard a level of nuance and respectful fragility like no other. At once, you loathe his pretentious impuissance, but want to gather him up in your arms and pet his hair. His mannerisms, his sass, his golden robes trimmed with fluff and metallic threads… he is fearless and peerless in playing Richard as effeminate and obviously gay with such strength and conviction. I mean, I’m sure that’s the direction David Tennant took as well, just from seeing production photos, but Ben Whishaw has this ineffable talent for making vulnerability seem essential and formidable. Ben is a gift.
More disclosure: I named my bird Ben after both Whishaw and Cumberbatch, so I’m a hopeless fangirl and no one can stop me.
I also appreciate Fiona Shaw’s memorable turn as the King in Deborah Warner’s production of Richard II. She actually plays Richard off as more masculine than Ben Whishaw does, and it’s truly fascinating. Just as Hamlet is also given to a good female enactment, so is Richard, which isn’t surprising, as they can both be read as the kind of platonic concept of a human we all suppose our dear William was striving to cultivate over his career. Fiona’s Richard presents the audience with the possibility of a gender fluid monarch, bordering on entirely neuter, which reveals the micro-sexisms and macro-patriarchal notions within humanity’s social establishments. She is a badass.
I am truly loath to leave this play. I’ve had fun meditating on its grandiose language and studying the films. I am reassured that there will be more Ben Whishaw later in the year when we get to The Tempest, thank God. There are plenty of other boyfriends on the horizon as well. We’re really approaching the heart of Shakespeare’s brilliance now!